You Never Fell in Love Before
by Phoenix Of Hope
Summary: This fic had started out as a co-written one, then passed completely onto me. SSHG isn't what I usually write, but it is interesting...


"Fine." Hermione mumbled, getting up from her chair. She wasn't done eating but she didn't want to keep her professors waiting. "I'll be right there." Hermione flashed a fake smile at Snape, who turned and walked out of the Great Hall.  
  
"Hermione, why did you [I]volunteer[/I] for that job? I mean, its bad enough having had potions with him for years, now you're signing up for extra time with him?" Ron was unbelieving.  
  
"And Hermione, how will you keep up with that and your Head Girl duties?" Harry chimed in.  
  
"I will, what's it to you?" Hermione snapped at her best friends, than instantly felt regret.  
  
"I'm sorry, its just, well, Dumbledore had asked for volunteers, and well, no one was volunteering, I checked the sign up sheet, and well, Ijustfeltsorryforhim." Hermione rushed the end of her sentence. She turned quickly to go.  
  
"You felt sorry for him?!" Ron asked incredulously, a little bit too loud. Harry elbowed him as Hermione hurried out of the Hall, tracing Snape's path from before. ~*~  
  
Before Hermione knew it, she was in the room appointed for the meeting between herself, Snape and Dumbledore. Snape was already there, but Dumbledore hadn't arrived yet. Snape was sitting in an arm chair, facing the fire. With the flickering firelight, Hermione could have mistook him for a 7th year.  
  
"Miss Granger, I suppose I must thank you for volunteering. No one else wanted the job, as I am hard on my students, and won't give any breaks to those who happen to be my assistant. Don't expect any." Snape stopped as Dumbledore opened the door. He motioned for Hermione to sit across from Snape, both of whom were facing him. Dumbledore remained standing.  
  
"Severus, Miss Granger. I wanted to talk with you both before the school year officially started. Severus, you are to give Hermione no homework, though Miss Granger must still be held accountable for the material though, as tests and quizzes still stand. Her periods during which she will assist you Severus, are as follows: Before and after lunch, and the last class of every day, not including her normally scheduled class with her year. Miss Granger, I am exceptionally glad you have offered your time towards helping Professor Snape. Student teaching is a large part of a teaching degree, and if you're serious enough about it, and would like to pursue it, I'm sure we can work something out." Dumbledore smiled warmly at the two.  
  
"This shall be an interesting year, and I'm sure it will be enjoyable. As it is, Miss Granger, you must lead your house to it's common room, and Severus, you and I must return to the head table to dismiss the students." Dumbledore swept out of the room, leaving one very unhappy teacher, and a rather elated student. ~*~  
  
Hermione was starting her way up the wide staircase when she felt a hand upon her shoulder. Turning, she saw it was Draco Malfoy.  
  
"Can I help you?" Hermione tried to be polite, though it wasn't working too well.  
  
"I just wanted to say- congratulations. You have more to you than what I thought, mudblood." Draco sneered, though there was something different about his manner, as if it were more like pleasant banter than an insulting back-handed compliment. Hermione merely glared then kept going up the stairs. She didn't turn around until she heard a familiar, friendly voice calling her name.  
  
"Hermione! Hermione!" Harry and Ron were dashing up the stairs to catch up with her. Ron nearly slipped, but barely caught himself. Hermione snorted loudly.  
  
"We saved you some dessert." Harry grinned and held up some food wrapped in a napkin. Hermione took it, and opened the bundle. Treacle tarts, her favorite.  
  
"Thanks." Hermione grinned, picking one up and taking a bite, and then filling in her hest friends on the meeting she had with Snape and the Headmaster of Hogwarts. ~*~  
  
As Hermione was rejoining her friends, Severus Snape watched sullenly from the doorway of the Great Hall. He didn't think it was going to be an 'enjoyable' year, as Dumbledore had put it. In fact, he thought the year couldn't get any worse. He wasn't fond of Miss Granger at all, her very personality grated against his nerves, along with her annoying way of always having an answer for everything. Now, he had three periods in addition to her NEWT class, which he had no excuse for not accepting her into, though he wished dearly that he hadn't.  
  
Severus made his way down to his dungeon classroom, and his office. Adjacent to his office, were his personal chambers. As he descended into the bowels of the castle, Severus contemplated his existence in this castle. He was the Potions Master, yes, that was true, and one of the more respected of the teachers. But something was missing in his life, female company yes, but Severus couldn't put into words how lonely he felt in his dungeon. His personal chambers were a part of the dungeon, and there was no way to make it look otherwise. He was not big on decorating, so the drab room he slept in was no more than a bed and a wall transfigured into a closet. He had few personal belongings, leaving what little he had in a box in his closet. Severus had always felt that Hogwarts was his reprieve, his reprieve from being at home. After he graduated, Severus didn't want to leave his sanctuary, so he signed on fist as a student teacher then Potions assistant, and finally Potions Master. It was a wretched existence for him, but Severus had no other life, no knowledge of what else he could or want to do. He had no friends in school, and the few students he thought were decent in his school days, were now in Azkaban. Well, they were broken out now, but they were still convicted criminals. ~*~  
  
Even though she didn't like Professor Snape at all, she couldn't help but be excited and look forward to the period before lunch- the first period where she will be a teacher's assistant. Hermione was practically giddy when she entered the dungeon classroom five minutes before class was to start. 1st years, Gryffindors and Slytherins were queuing up outside, waiting for the bell signaling classes to ring. Hermione waltzed into the classroom, a large smile on her face, making her look radiantly beautiful; it was shining from the inside out.  
  
"Miss Granger. How nice of you to be on time." Snape put his quill down as Hermione came up to his desk. He looked up at her, and saw, for once, away from the usual context of teacher and student, that Hermione had grown into an attractive young woman, her smile lighting up her face.  
  
[I]'Why is she so damn happy?'[/I] Snape thought to himself, loathingly.  
  
"Professor, what would you like me to do?" Hermione asked, putting her splitting school bag on the floor, next to Snape's desk.  
  
"Copy this recipe onto the blackboard. The 1st years will be examining it today, and making it tomorrow, during Double Potions." Snape handed Hermione a piece of parchment that had a tight narrow writing on it; they were Snape's class notes. Hermione set to writing the recipe on the board; it was a very complex one, that Hermione didn't remember covering in her first year. She covered half the board with her loopy but tiny writing. Hermione tried to be careful that she didn't write too small.  
  
"Miss Granger that will not do. If you were sitting in the last row, could you read that?" Snape sneered, waving his wand and magically cleaning the board, and Hermione's work. She tried very hard not to get angry, this was only her first day of many with him.  
  
"Yes, Professor." Hermione grumbled. She began copying again, this time, very large. As she was finishing her last sentence, the bell signaling classes rung, and the students filed into the classroom.  
  
"That will do Miss Granger, next time, do not write so large." Snape took the floor in front of the blackboard, leaving Hermione off to the side.  
  
"Professor?" Hermione asked meekly before Snape officially began class.  
  
"What is it, Miss Granger?" Snape growled; he was in the middle of taking roll.  
  
"What would you like me to do?" Hermione turned rather pink as Snape turned a angry glare to her.  
  
"Sit. Take notes on teaching." He spat, and continued taking roll. At the end, he quickly got started. The students were silent, except for when Snape barked a question at one of them, and then, the poor student in question, usually a Gryffindor, would tremble visibly as they tried to think of the answer. Snape, many times, would get fed up with waiting for them to process information and would nastily sneer the right answer. Hermione was sickened by the way he taught. In fact, she couldn't think of a worse way to teach.  
  
"Professor Snape?" Hermione approached him after he had dismissed his students.  
  
"May I help you?" Snape was sitting down at his desk, getting ready to spend yet another of his lunch periods grading essays.  
  
"I was just wondering about how you taught class-" Hermione began, but was not allowed to finish.  
  
"Do you have a problem with the way I teach, Miss Granger?" Snape looked up wearily from the paper he was about to grade.  
  
"As a matter of fact, I do. You see-"  
  
"Miss Granger, when you have 16 years teaching experience, then you may comment on my style of teaching. Be that as it may, since you obviously do not like the way I teach," Snape's face twisted into a horrible smile, "You may teach the next lesson. You better get planning." Snape handed Hermione a roster of students. Hermione's eyes flashed with anger, but did not say anything. She walked dignifiedly from the dungeon, and went to lunch. Snape rubbed his forehead. This was going to be a long year, he could tell.  
  
"That's it?" Harry looked incredulously at the paper he held. Hermione was quickly stuffing food into herself. She nodded in reply, then grabbed the roster, and took off at top speed to the library to prepare her lesson.  
  
As the bell signaling the beginning of classes sounded in the hall, Hermione skidded to a stop in front of Snape's classroom. She regained her bearings and walked in.  
  
"Miss Granger, how nice of you to join us. Don't be late next time." Snape was not happy that Hermione had returned. He had hoped she'd be deterred by the lesson she had to come up with.  
  
"Sorry." Hermione's tone made it clear she wasn't sorry at all. She walked up to the front of the room, and stood before the blackboard. She was in her element.  
  
"I will begin by taking roll. If I must stop once, you will lose 10 house points and will receive a detention." Hermione added confidence to her voice as she started. She looked at the class, they were the academic 7th year potion students, Gryffindors and Slytherins.  
  
"Please get out your notes. Now." Hermione had a dangerous tone in her voice when no one moved. There was a flurry of papers from the Gryffindors, but the Slytherins didn't budge.  
  
"Suit yourself, don't take notes. Its not mandatory, though I [I]highly[/I] suggest it." Hermione smiled sickly sweet at her fellow students. She gave a long lecture on Enamoring Potions, which were similar to love potions. With ten minutes left to class, Hermione finished the lecture but not the class.  
  
"Ok, now to see how well you listened, please take out any notes you have. And answer these questions." Hermione grinned nastily as the Slytherins who didn't take any notes, or even paid any attention, looked angry. with a bit of horrification thrown in.  
  
"You can't do that!" Crabbe, one of Draco Malfoy's friends decided.  
  
"Oh, but I can. My lesson, my rules. Get going, or you won't finish." Hermione set a test in front of him. "Good luck." She whispered. Snape was looking rather pleased in the corner. Hermione was using many of the techniques he used, and she wasn't all that bad of a teacher. He couldn't believe that she had come up with a decent lesson in such a short amount of time. ~*~  
  
As the day ended, and Snape sat at his desk, reflecting in his journal, his thoughts drifted to the first lesson he ever taught as a teacher's assistant, when he was in his 7th year.  
  
Severus had told the Potions Master that he needed to be firmer with the students, to get them to learn more, after observing just one lesson as a teacher's assistant. And of course, his professor told him he had one hour to prepare a lesson, and he would be teaching the NEWT Potions class that day. the only class that contained Severus's peers.  
  
"Hurry up, Snivellus. We got a ton of stuff to do." James Potter sneered from the back of his classroom, as Severus, then only 17 years old, tried to being class in a weak voice. His blood boiled with anger as Sirius Black and James Potter kept interrupting him. Severus looked exasperatedly at the clock, he had only 15 minutes left, and the Potions Master was grinning smugly.  
  
"Since Potter and Black know so much about today's lesson," Severus called out over the din that had settled in his class, "You will be tested on it, now. For every correct answer, you receive 1 house point. For every wrong answer," Severus smiled nastily, "you will lose 2 house points. Do I make myself clear?"  
  
"Whatever you say, Snivelly." James Potter laughed, but his girlfriend of two weeks, Lily Evans, elbowed him. This was not lost upon Severus.  
  
"Right. Pettigrew, what are the properties of the mandrake draught?" Snape rounded on his first victim. The class wasn't completely silent, there was still a lot of whispering going on.  
  
"Um, uh, um." Peter couldn't give him an answer.  
  
"I thought so. Two points from Gryffindor." Severus decided curtly.  
  
"You can't do that!" Sirius Black shouted, taking his feet off of the top of the table for the first time that lesson.  
  
"Oh, but I can. Its my class. I can teach it however I want. Can you tell me, Black, what the properties are of the mandrake draught?" Severus ignored Lily Evans hand waving in the air.  
  
"You know bloody well I don't know!" Sirius roared, seeming to get angry. Remus Lupin, a friend of Potter and Black, laid a hand on Black's arm, obviously telling him to cool it. Sirius slumped in his chair, brooding and angry.  
  
"Two more points, it seems, from Gryffindor.  
  
"Evans, redeem your little friends." Severus shrugged, and Lily gave the correct answer, though not receiving any house points for her answer. ~*~  
  
There was a knock on his chamber doors. Getting up tiredly, he cracked the door open, only to find Hermione, still in her school robes, though it was well past the 11pm curfew, standing there, a sheaf of parchment in hand.  
  
"Professor? I was wondering when we'd go over the notes I made today. And if you wanted me to teach again tomorrow." Hermione's voice was laced with the sound of sleepiness, and Severus felt guilty that she made herself come all the way down to his dungeon for no reason; he was just going to send her back.  
  
"Miss Granger, its almost midnight; get to bed. We'll talk about them during lunch tomorrow, in my office. And no, you don't have to teach again tomorrow. As much as it pains me to say," Snape paused a moment, and almost smiled, "you did very well teaching today. You may teach again only if you wish."  
  
"Th-Thank you, Professor. Thanks a lot." Hermione turned to go.  
  
"Call me Severus, we're teaching together, are we not?" The promised smile from before slipped out. "Goodnight Miss Granger."  
  
"Hermione, after all, we're teaching together." Hermione smiled and began her journey back to the Gryffindor Tower.  
  
"Hermione." Snape whispered, still standing there long after his assistant had left. ~*~  
  
For reasons unbeknownst to her, Hermione had a smile on her face when she woke up the next morning. She felt refreshed and peaceful, but most of all, happy. A kind of happiness she hadn't felt for years.  
  
When Hermione was younger, she was always laughing, giggling, skipping, jumping: playing. She was happy, truly happy. She didn't worry about grades, she wasn't in school yet. She could read storybooks, and write her name. Her parents said she was smart for her age. So smart, they enrolled her in school a year early, and then Hermione skipped a year. When she was six, she was in fourth year, and at least two years younger than all her classmates, even the youngest one. They all laughed at buck-toothed Hermione Granger, the brainiac. It wasn't until Hermione went to Hogwarts that Hermione ever found friends, real friends, and even so, they were awful to her at first.  
  
Years went by and Hermione had grown accustomed to the antics of the boys, and the solace of silence. It didn't matter that her friends sometimes forgot about her- they were boys. And boys will be boys. But today, her second day of her final year, Hermione felt a feeling she hadn't felt in years. She didn't want to be in the castle- she wanted to run and skip and play in the sunlight. Hermione wanted to play hopscotch, run around playing tag. Things she hadn't wanted to do since she first went to school.  
  
"You sure seem happy today." Harry commented as Hermione sat down to breakfast.  
  
"I don't know- it just feels like a good day, you know?" Hermione grinned at Harry, but looked beyond him. She had caught the eye of Draco Malfoy, who had been staring at her. She quickly dropped her gaze, blushing slightly. Harry looked over his shoulder confused, but saw nothing. Shrugging, he went back to his food. 


End file.
